THE END OF NOWHERE

September 13th, 2019

How long has it been since you saw the Laptop bumper sticker, or the cheesy Instagram post or one pierced hipster say to another:

All those who wander are not lost.

The line is originally from the Lord of the Rings, but that’s of little matter.

Wonder, for a moment, about what the word ‘wander’ means.

Someone wandering around is clearly looking for something, otherwise, wouldn’t a person stay put?

Do we have any other reason for wandering?  Even when we don’t really know what we’re looking for?

The urge is there.

But think about the opposite.  About a person who has no urge to wander.  We might label such a person with a euphemistic platitude about being content and knowing what they want, but does such a person have any chance of discovery?

To be sure we do not actually have to get up and physically wander around.  We can be at home, reading a book, or researching a topic that’s spawned 73 tabs in our internet browser. 

To wander is to pay heed to curiosity. 

Unlike the rigid tests of school, curiosity gently allows us to wonder, and suspect that there’s… something.. something out there that we don’t really know about yet. 

This sensing of the unknown is also captured by any great question.

Questions, which are defined on tinkered Thinking as open-ended concepts that create forward momentum, thrust the mind on a quest.

And a quest, like any good adventure cannot be planned.  We take it a step at a time and figure it out as we go.

In essence, we wander our way towards a realization.

All those who wander are not lost because they have a sense of something to find, but such people simply seem lost because no one yet knows the way.